Blackberry REACT July 2006 Newsletter

A quick suggestion for J-poles made from antenna lead-in wire: slip the antenna into a PVC tube. A cap on top makes for some weather shielding. But drill some clip holes in the PVC pipe so that you can put the antenna on a flag pole at your local school or where ever and run it up the pole. If you position the holes correctly, you can even get the antenna above the pole to some extent.

California amateurs use 7250MHz for emergency communications. In addition to listening in on your emergency repeater frequency, see if you can monitor 7250 as well for information from outside your immediate area.

The FCC is asking for comments on a Notice of Proposed Rule Making. During the hurricane season last year, the FCC granted several waivers ("Special Temporary Authority") allowing tech license holders to use HF bands for emergency communication. (See http://www.civex.com/ stuff/ and search the page for 40M to read about the use of 40 meters after Katrina because repeaters were out of action). The FCC seeks comments on three areas: Waiver of Amateur Radio and license- exempt rules, permitting transmissions necessary to meet essential communications needs; waiver of application filing deadlines, something the FCC did last fall for amateurs living in hurricane- stricken states; and a streamlined STA process. Given that we live in an area prone to earthquakes, I think we should consider chiming in to support easing the rules for amateur communications during disasters. The URL for commenting is http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/ecfs/ -- enter 06-119 in the field called Proceeding. To read the NPRM, see
http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-06-83A1.pdf (NOTE: this triggers the download of a .pdf file).

The ARRL has its Amateur Radio Emergency Communications Level 1 (EC-001) available online (for a fee) at http://www.arrl.org/cce/courses.html with registration for this session (August 11) closing on Sunday, July 23. Registration will reopen on Monday the 24th for classes beginning September 1. A very similar course has been available at REACT International at http://www.reactintl.org/ but I cannot now find the direct link.

You may remember the shooting at the courthouse in Reno a month or so ago. The Reno Gazette Journal has placed recordings of the traffic between the police and the 911 operators online at http://tinyurl.com/hzb6h. These recordings are interesting for a number of reasons: The computers were down at the time, so the operators could not enter information into the database for all other operators to have access to; someone had an open mike, blocking all traffic on one of their tactical channels; the amount of misinformation from witnesses is remarkable; the professionalism of the officers and operators is notable. For information, REMSA (referred to in some traffic) is the local ambulance service, and radio channels are identified by color.

Events

Among the events REACT handled so far this month are the Breathe California Bike for Breath and the Connoisseurs Market. Louise and I were at the Bike for Breath, and we can report that there were no serious injuries; one rider fell from his bike and was taken to a hospital where they cut all his clothes off, leaving him with nothing to wear. We saw him back at the Start/Finish in scrubs, so he wasn't arrested for indecent exposure. A couple of people came by for band- aids, and a good time was had by all, as they say.

I'll ask for a report from the people at the Connoisseurs Market for the next newsletter.

Updates

I'm sending this out as a plain text email. I will also provide our Webmaster with a marked up copy as HTML to post on the site so you can read the archives of the newsletter and the months and years go buy. The plain text may not have clickable links (it depends on your email application), so you can copy and paste URLs into your browser. The copy on the Web site will be marked up with links for your clicking pleasure.